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On swamis and religious gibberish

For once, I don’t believe in religion or caste. I believe I am a human and that is enough a distinction from other species I am sharing the planet with. I and S still go ahead and mention ourselves as a Hindu in the Census because we want to give the poor school teachers a break and let them accept the change of not mentioning our caste before we omit the Hindu too. Most of them still don’t seem to stomach the fact that we don’t want to specify the caste in the caste field.
The situation is that, my cousin sister had an irritating encounter with a swami who claimed to be the know-all be-all of Hindu religion and strongly advocated caste system because he thought his was superior. Wonder what he would have to say if his was like the least in the social ladder!

As soon as she arrived at her aunt’s place, she was asked to go greet the swami who was there with his son. Then, what started as series of questions ended up being a huge lecture. Let me go in detail.

Looks like he had his input from her aunts. He started by asking her to agree for marriage, which right now she doesn’t, which is quite fine by people like me, which right now are only me and S. She remained quite demure and didn’t answer back, then he started telling how she cannot be unmarried and still be in the same as everyone else. That meant she should move towards spiritual attainment and blah, which meant she has to become a sanyasini or something. The audacity!

Who in the world is he to tell her what to do with her life? Just because stupid people blindly follow him, he thinks he is almighty. I fail to understand why all the elders have to take it upon themselves to force it down the throat of the person in question, the idea of marriage.

The he starts blabbering about some vishva hindu sammelana which was attended by all religion swamis and how there was a saabi (slang for muslim) had also come and he sang verses of highlighting Hinduism. (And that is why I should be proud of being a Hindu? Gimme an effing break!) This is the point where she lost it. If he can’t respect his fellow swami, albeit of a different caste, how can he respect someone else?

A lot of argument went on between swami and sister, in which she said she doesn’t believe in caste system and that all are equals. He started giving example of how Sun and Moon can’t be equal, that is why we have castes. Haha! I’d have laughed at his sorry face.

I wish I could meet him and give him a piece of my mind. Ask him simple logical questions and prove that he is a fraud. Would that be asking for much?

My own opinion on swamis is not so good either. I don’t touch their feet, I don’t talk to them much, I don’t even sit in front of them. They don’t deserve the kind of respect they gather just by talking rubbish. I’m yet to meet a swami who is quite learned and makes sense when he talks. Someone who is open to discussion and has logical reasoning to back him.

Btw why do we have swamis at all? Why do we call them for functions/celebrations? Why do we have to touch their feet? I wonder.